HHS head: Health-care status quo 'unacceptable'

RuthMantell

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- The status quo for America's health-care system is "unacceptable," the new U.S. chief for health and human services said Wednesday, as the weak economy highlights the nation's struggle with escalating coverage costs.

"High and rising" costs for health care have contributed to the weak economy, and these costs are the "greatest threat to our long-term economic stability," said Kathleen Sebelius, who was sworn in as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services in late April, at a health reform hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee.

"Health-care costs are crushing families, businesses and government budgets," Sebelius said. "Today health-care costs are the big squeeze on middle class families and these challenges are growing as the economic picture worsens."

The Wednesday event is the former Kansas governor's first post-confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill. She affirmed the administration's position to support imperatives such as: containing costs; covering patients with pre-existing conditions; covering all Americans; and improving quality of care.

President Barack Obama is pushing for meaningful health care reform to be enacted this year. Looking to find avoid an impasse over reform, Obama has asked Congress to find workable solutions.

But building a bipartisan consensus, or at least enough support to pass reform, is no easy feat. Still, experts say momentum is building among all health care participants - patients, care providers, insurers -- and the recession adds to the urgency for timely reform.

"The seriousness of the economic decline makes it imperative that the nation moves to provide health insurance coverage for everyone," said Karen Davis, president of the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation that supports health-care programs. "Families are hurting financially, trying to make mortgage payments, credit card payments, medical bills they can't afford, or even their share of the payment."

A new study from the Center for American Progress estimates that 2.4 million workers have lost health coverage from their jobs since the recession began, with 1.3 million of the losses occurring in the last four months. In March, more than 320,000 workers lost employer-provided coverage -- about 10,680 workers per day, according to the liberal think tank.

"The rapid loss of health coverage demonstrates the fundamental instability of health insurance protections in our current system and the need for comprehensive health reform," according to the Center for American Progress study. "The time to deliver quality, affordable health care coverage to our nation's families is now."

New evidence for urgency

Elsewhere Wednesday, HHS released two national reports that found health-care quality is "suboptimal," and that quality and access disparities persist among different population groups. Read full reports.

"Unfortunately, Americans too often do not receive care that they need or they receive care that causes harm," according to one of the reports. "Care can be delivered too late or without full consideration of a patient's preferences and values. Many times, our system of health care distributes services inefficiently and unevenly across populations."

Some of the reports' findings are:

40% of recommended care is not received by patients.

Only half of obese adults and children are advised to exercise more and eat a healthy diet.

Seven of 10 adults with mood, anxiety, or impulse disorders received inadequate or no treatment.

At least 60% of quality measures have not improved for minorities compared to Caucasians in the past six years.

Patient safety measures have worsened by almost 1% in each of the past six years.

Work in Washington

There are signs that Washington is serious about bipartisan work on health care. Late last month, the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee offered joint proposals, with detailed options, that would take actions such as revising Medicare payments system to "promote higher-quality, and more cost-effective care," and reducing waste throughout the entire health system.

Committees in both the House and the Senate are working on reform, and the full chambers could take up legislation by Congress's recess in August.

"There is a lot of reason to be optimistic that this could be accomplished this year," said Robert Zirkelbach, strategic communications director with America's Health Insurance Plans. "All the stakeholders are coming to the table and saying they want to do reform."

While a final bill is a while off, Zirkelbach said there appears to be growing consensus that reform must include coverage for all Americans - otherwise costs for the uninsured will be passed along - as well as cost containment measures and steps to improve outcomes and research about the comparative effectiveness of treatments.

Washington has already started pushing forward with some health-care reform. Obama has signed a $33 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Program, aiming to cover an additional 4.1 million kids for a total of about 11 million. And the economic stimulus package contained about $19 billion in incentive payments for hospitals, doctors and other providers to computerize medical records, and $1.1 billion in funding for research to compare the effectiveness of medical treatments and services.

Mortgage Rates

Powered by

This advertisement is provided by Bankrate, which compiles rate data from more than 4,800 financial institutions. Bankrate is paid by financial institutions whenever users click on display advertisements or on rate table listings enhanced with features like logos, navigation links, and toll free numbers. Dow Jones receives a share of these revenues when users click on a paid placement.

Intraday Data provided by SIX Financial Information and subject to terms of use.
Historical and current end-of-day data provided by SIX Financial Information.
All quotes are in local exchange time. Real-time last sale data for U.S. stock quotes reflect trades reported through Nasdaq only.
Intraday data delayed at least 15 minutes or per exchange requirements.